Tuesday, March 17, 2009

THE GRAND STAIRCASE, or "ALL NAVAJO Girls-R-EZE"

Subtitle brought to you by the men's room wall of Page Library, Arizona. This is the view out one wall of windows (like all photos of this area, it just can't come close to the grandeur) :

I am so overwhelmed with data and inspiration for 1 of the 3 LaB projects that I have to leave here before I totally switch off The Protagoras Paradox onto the related book. Here are some of the things I've enjoyed while in the area of Lake Powell AZ/UT ...

After a day or so here, I decided to complete that visit to Zion and/or Bryce, but on the way I saw a sign reading $25 entrance fee per park, so I looked around and said screw it, there are endless wonders right off the road. This was some baffling abandoned playground?, I jumped the fence, said hi to the scrawny (abandoned?) horses, fed them my apples, and found nothing else but the really cool spiral staircase that leads up to a path to a rope across the pond. Down the road from here was a cave for tourists but they were closed and no one else in the area knows what I'm asking about when I mention this pull off.This is where the King and I are. I jumped in Lake Powell though it is still winter and before my body lost all sensation, I jumped out. As soon as I drove in and saw the lake I of course planned to travel the length of it but there are no roads other than a small Wahweap Bay inlet. The entire southern border of the lake is Navajo Reservation and the northern is National Monument (created by Clinton in 1996).

And this is exactly where I jumped in, near Antelope Canyon, another incredible site that charged $26, so I shot it from the road ...

This is Powell Lake snaking away from the bay: in the distance is a cannon for shooting at alien ships in space, and also a Navajo owned and run mega coal plant.

Here's a view of Mahweap ('bitter water') bay. There was/is big controversy over the dam that created Lake Powell, the second largest man-made lake...

This is the view of both sides from the bridge over the dam. There are boats on the left side way below doing tours - THAT's the water I should swim in - though I'll constantly imagine the dam breaking.

Then we shot over to Tattoine, I had a meeting with some Jawas (they wouldn't let me photograph their ride). This is another shot from my adventure to come in a movie, but you are looking at what was a shoreline 70 million years ago. Not the bottom of the water, not a random shoreline along a lake or something ...

This is the only part of the world where the earth has worn away enough to expose coastline from the day of this funky dude on the right, NOT a triceratops. They are discovering 80% new species with every dig around here !

On this seashore, I found gazillions of fossilized sea shells, mind blowing experience walking across here.

I could go on and on about the geology and paleontology stuff after my invasive interviews with everyone I could grab in the area, but I'll wrap up. Here was a mini-adventure which started with me photographing bulls outside the fence, and then a very cool hand was zooming inside on a souped-up go-cart and asked if I'd like to take a ride while he fed them. It didn't occur to me until he yelled for me to get back into the cart that bulls running at you might be something bad.

This was our front yard until today. Several houseboats sit about ten pool laps in from the water's edge (I counted about 50 laps across, where I was desperate to get to - and is the subject of the coming movie).

Here's a contraption I planned from the start and finally found a great little campground to try it, but Solomon was not happy and we went back to supervised walks. This area was lousy with jackrabbits that were twenty percent taller than Solomon. He tried to chase them but they ran away laughing and painting eggs at the same time.